At about 10 o'clock in the morning the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows and in and out of the beam flies shot like rushing stars.

It is possible, even probable, to be told a truth about a place, to accept it, to know it and at the same time not to know anything about it.

[Cannery Row's] inhabitants are, as the man once said, 'whores, pimps, gamblers, and sons of bitches,' by which he meant everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said, 'saints and angels and martyrs and holy men,' and he would have meant the same thing.

I have wondered why is it that some people are less affected and torn by the verities of life and death that others.

It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.

Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.